


help us cry when we're alone late at night

by SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Martin POV, Songfic, does this count as jonmartin if one of them's in a coma??, i never know how to tag for relationships, in my notes as, jon's in a coma, post s3 hiatus, so it's come to this: a magnus archives songfic, there's nothing wrong with songfics idk why i'm like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29525952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse/pseuds/SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse
Summary: Martin had thought he was here for Jon, at first. To cry over Jon. But that’s not it. Peter had made him realize. He’s here so he can cry at all.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	help us cry when we're alone late at night

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic so I could tell you all to please listen to the song Hospital by The Modern Lovers. Literally THE post-s3 hiatus JonMartin song. I have no AMV-related skills and I must scream. 
> 
> Content warnings for: descriptions of dissociation and depression, emotional self-harm, hospitals, and emotional manipulation

Martin wasn’t there in the explosion, but he feels like it sometimes. Like he’s been blown back and left on the ground with his ears ringing, dust settling around him and the pavement the splintered surface of the moon. Today he feels like it on the tube. Everyone around him is in such a hurry, and he’s just slowly drifting in the vague direction of where he needs to be. Stopping, sometimes, to look at clocks and electronic signs as if they matter anymore, pain high in his chest like he’s been running. He’s got his earbuds in, listening to the song again. _When you get out of the hospital, let me back into your life._ Pressing a bruise. He should stop listening. He should stop doing this. 

But when the open door to the train happens to line up with where he’s standing, Martin gets on. The hospital’s not too far from the Institute, anyway, and he doesn’t have anything better to do these days. Nobody at the Institute does. They’ve all gotten very good at pretending to look busy while doing nothing of any real importance. Martin had been angry about that, in the first couple weeks after when he’d spent a lot of time searching variations of “weird coma” and mostly ended up listening to The Smiths. Or else reading stories of miraculous recovery and getting lost in stupid, elaborate fantasies of Jon opening his eyes just as Martin tells him that he needs him, he loves him; Jon tearing off the unnecessary oxygen cannula and pulling Martin down into a kiss. Martin’s not sure how angry he is now. He mostly ignores everyone else, and that seems to help.

The song starts over right as Martin gets off the train, and he wanders up to the street in a daze. He floats onto the sidewalk, sent gently spinning by the elbows of his fellow Londoners as they push past him. He used to panic when he got like this, grab the top of his head and try to shove it back onto his neck. And then it had become a relief. Around the time Peter left the first tape on his desk, maybe. 

The first tape was the song, and when Martin found it he’d honest to god burst out laughing in the middle of the Archives. Was Peter hitting on him? Was that it? Some sort of getting-to-know-you mixtape from the Institute’s sugar daddy? But then he’d listened to the song, and kept listening to it, eyes welling up as he stared out into the shadows of the Archives, and Martin had realized that Peter already knows him. Knows that he likes to take his sadness and hold it to his chest. The same way he’ll clutch at a cup of tea when it’s the closest thing he has to body heat. And Peter had made it very easy for Martin to keep doing that. To indulge as much as he wanted. 

Since Jon hasn’t woken up yet, maybe that’s kindness.

The hospital looks like it always does, and smells like it always does, and because Martin’s head isn’t quite attached he doesn’t have to pause for breath in the doorway. Instead he heads straight to the front desk, pops out an earbud just in time to hear the attendant ask if he’s here to see Jonathan Sims. Great. Maybe it’s because Jon’s memorable, with his array of flatlining monitors and the way his skin heals around the IV tubes. Compared to all that, Martin’s just some pathetic asshole here to stare at someone who can’t even tell he’s there. For the third time this week.

He goes into the room. He sits in the chair, which is still angled towards the bed the way it was the last time he sat in it. He stares at Jon. He listens to the song. He waits, dispassionately, for something that has begun to feel like fog to clear from his mind. He’d thought he was here for Jon, at first. To cry over Jon. But that’s not it. Peter had made him realize. He’s here so he can cry at all.

And he does, eventually, with the pain of blood rushing back into a limb. Martin cries, and he begs Jon to come back to him, and he gasps and he sobs until he feels like he really is upset. The world turns to blues and blacks instead of that washed-out grey, shaded with all the richness of despair. Of knowing that Jon’s not going to wake up. That Martin is alone, alone, alone, alone. 

And then he’s done. Or at least dehydrated. He stares at Jon again, and it’s odd to think how close they are, without being able to interact in any way that matters. But it’s been like that for a while, hasn’t it? Maybe always. It’s hard to remember now. The fog is coming back already. The song is starting over. At least Jon is getting enough sleep for once in his not-life. 

There’s another tape on Martin’s desk when he gets back to the Institute, set next to a neat stack of fresh statements, all labelled with Peter’s handwriting. A new threat, he’d said. Something that could hurt Jon.

 _I don’t think anything can hurt Jon anymore,_ Martin had said.

 _Of course you don’t._ Peter always smiled like a formality. _You only think he’s a body in a bed for you to cry over. No worse fate._

_That’s not true. I love him._

_Like a painting, Martin. Like a god._

_Like a person. I do._

_Prove it._ It’s an odd thing, Martin had thought then, and will think again, when he gets the phone call. That fear can still cut through the fog. _Protect him._

Martin sits down at his desk. He picks up the newest tape, turns it over in his hands. In a minute he’ll put it in a recorder, listen to whatever fresh horror Peter’s left for him and try to make some kind of sense out of it. He’ll take notes, draw connections. He’ll go up to the library for references, if he can stand to be around people. But for now he just listens to the song. He listens to the song, and he thinks about Jon, and he feels himself begin to disappear. 

**Author's Note:**

> Also I realized as I was writing this that like, in the canon of this fic Peter Lukas ALSO thought 'omg this is THE post-s3 hiatus JonMartin song.' Hope you all enjoyed!


End file.
